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Bucharest (AFP) - Hundreds of thousands of people hit the streets across Romania to protest against the government's decriminalising of a string of corruption offences, the largest demonstrations since the fall of communism in 1989.

Between 200,000 and 300,000 protesters, according to media estimates, braved sub-zero temperatures to demonstrate, with some shouting "Thieves!" and "Resign!" a day after the government passed an emergency decree.

In the capital Bucharest some demonstrators hurled bottles, firecrackers and stones at security forces, who responded by firing tear gas. A few police and protesters were lightly injured.

For the second straight night crowds also hit the streets in other cities across the country -- including in Timisoara, cradle of the 1989 revolution.

Over a matter of days that uprising nearly 30 years ago forced dictator Nicolae Ceausescu from power, ending with he and his wife being summarily executed on December 25, 1989.

In the emergency decree issued late Tuesday, the government decriminalised certain corruption offences and made abuse of power punishable by jail only if it results in a monetary loss of more than 44,000 euros ($47,500).

Romania's left-wing government under the Social Democrats (PSD) has only been in office a few weeks after bouncing back in elections on December 11, barely a year since mass protests forced them from office.

The government had remained silent since Tuesday evening, but on Wednesday Justice Minister Florin Iordache wrote on his Facebook page that there was "nothing secret, illegal or immoral" about the emergency decree.

Bucharest said it is putting legislation in line with the constitution.

But critics say the main beneficiary will be PSD leader Liviu Dragnea, currently on trial for alleged abuse of power, as well as other left-wing politicians.

Dragnea, 54, is already barred from office because of a two-year suspended jail sentence for voter fraud handed down last year. His abuse-of-power trial, which began on Tuesday, concerns 24,000 euros.

Another initiative, which Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu will submit to parliament, will see around 2,500 people serving sentences of less than five years for non-violent crimes released from prison.

The government said that this will reduce overcrowding in jails but critics say that, again, the main beneficiaries will be the many officials and politicians ensnared in a major anti-corruption drive of recent years.

- 'Scandalous' -

The anti-corruption push saw Romania make history in 2015 when then-prime minister Victor Ponta went on trial over alleged tax evasion and money laundering, charges he denies.

Only last week the European Commission commended the efforts of ex-communist Romania, which joined the European Union together with neighbouring Bulgaria in 2007 as the bloc's two poorest members.

But this week's latest move set off alarm bells in Brussels, with European Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker and his deputy Frans Timmermans issuing a joint statement expressing "deep concern" on Wednesday.

"The fight against corruption needs to be advanced, not undone," they said. "The Commission warns against backtracking and will look thoroughly at the emergency ordinance... in this light."

Centre-right President Klaus Iohannis, elected in 2014 on an anti-graft platform and a sharp critic of Dragnea, on Wednesday called the decree "scandalous" and moved to invoke the constitutional court.

Both decrees were published earlier this month, sparking protests last Sunday that drew 40,000 people including 20,000 in the capital, and more than 15,000 a week earlier.

The laws have been heavily criticised by several Romanian officials and institutions, including the attorney general, the anti-corruption chief prosecutor and the president of the high court.

"I am outraged. The PSD won the elections but that doesn't mean they can sneakily change the penal code in the middle of the night," said protester Gabriela State, 46.

On Wednesday some 20,000 demonstrators gathered in the western city of Cluj, an AFP correspondent said, while there were 15,000 in Timisoara and 10,000 in Sibiu in central Romania.

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Romania anti-govt protests biggest since communism fell - Yahoo News

Tibetans were once fabled warriors. Their empire, at the summit of its power in the eighth century, extended to northern India, western China and central Asia. The Arabs, making inroads into central Asia, were in awe of them. And China, according to an inscription commissioned to memorialise Tibets conquest of the Tang Chinese capital of Changan in 763, shivered with fear at their mention. But the Tibet annexed by Mao Zedong in the 20th century bore no trace of its imperial past.

When the Peoples Liberation Army struck in 1950, Tibet, having metamorphosed over a millennium into a reclusive hagiarchy, possessed neither the vocabulary to parley with the communists nor the strength to resist them. Its response to this worldly threat was to retreat into ritual. A 15-year-old boy called Tenzin Gyatso, identified some years before as the 14th Dalai Lama, was hastily confirmed as Tibets supreme ruler. His delegation to Beijing the following year signed away Tibets sovereignty without consulting him. What ensued was a protracted act of gratuitous savagery. Mao called it liberation. Monasteries were razed, monks executed, thousands of nonviolent protesters massacred, and many thousands more detained, starved, tortured, uprooted and carted away to communes to toil in conditions so severe that some resorted to cannibalism in order to survive. In 1959, the Dalai Lama, facing imminent capture, escaped to India.

At no point in their history, the influential Tibetan author Tragya, who publishes under the pen name Shokdung (wake-up call), writes in The Division of Heaven and Earth, were Tibetans made to endure such sustained misery. Swiftly banned by the Chinese Communist party when it was first published in Tibet in 2008, the book is now available for the first time in English. It is a haunting indictment of Chinas colonial project in Tibet, and if the charges contained in it are so bruising for Beijing, it is because the person making them was not long ago regarded by the CCP as a fellow traveller. Shokdung attained notoriety in the 1990s for his attacks on Tibets religious tumour of ignorance. Beijing immediately sought to co-opt him.

The uprising of 2008, when thousands of Tibetans streamed into the streets demanding an end to Chinese occupation and the return of the Dalai Lama, upended Shokdungs world. China expelled journalists from Tibet and set its military loose on the protesters. It was a bloodbath. Witnessing the crackdown with increasing self-revulsion from his office in a state-run publishing house, Shokdung arrived at the conclusion that what Tibetans lacked was not the will but a political philosophy suited to their conditions. Here, he advances Gandhi as the model for Tibetan resistance.

Shokdung makes a powerful case. But can Gandhi really save Tibet? George Orwell once disappointed pacifists by saying that Gandhian tactics of nonviolent non-cooperation would not have worked against the Soviet Union. The same is true of China. As Shokdung himself concedes, The British rulers of India had some degree of moral conscience. Gandhi had tea with George V. The Dalai Lama had to flee Mao in heavy disguise.

Tibet today enjoys virtually no meaningful external support. The liberal assumption that the West was more likely to influence China by making concessions to its rulers has proved to be a self-wounding fantasy. Far from moulding Chinas behaviour, it is the West that has incrementally surrendered to Beijing. Today, western authors self-censor for the tawdry privilege of being published in China; Hollywood modifies its films to placate the CCP, and governments that never tire of puffing their chests at the Middle Easts tinpot tyrannies abase themselves before Beijing.

China, emboldened by the display of deference, continues remorselessly to disfigure the hypnotically beautiful plateau. In official documents, Tibet, a source of prized minerals and hydrocarbons, is classified as Water Tower Number One. More than 140 Tibetans have immolated their own bodies in protest at Chinas plunder of their natural resources. No government has the moral courage to mourn them.

Shokdung recognises the isolated position of Tibetans. His Gandhian prescription, whether it succeeds or not, has the merit of being self-reliant. Shokdung has been jailed for defying the CCP. His family continues to be harassed. Meanwhile, copies of his book circulate underground in Tibet. Tibets overlords are evidently terrified. If Shokdung, an intellectual moulded by Chinas ideological schools, can turn so abruptly hostile, what hope does Beijing have of controlling others?

This remarkable book, written to fortify the Tibetan spirit against the assaults of colonialism, has already performed an important service by exposing the fragility of Chinas hold on the Tibetan mind.

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Will non-violent resistance ever work against communism? - Spectator.co.uk

Romanias prime minister has refused to repeal decrees that critics say will free corrupt officials from jail early and shield others from conviction, despite international condemnation and the biggest popular protests since the fall of communism.

We took a decision in the government and we are going to press ahead, Sorin Grindeanu said after a meeting of his ruling leftwing Social Democrats (PSD). The party leader, Liviu Dragnea, blamed an ongoing campaign of lies and disinformation for opposition to the decrees.

The PSD won elections [in December] with a huge vote. The governments power is legitimate, Dragnea said, labelling the centre-right president, Klaus Iohannis, the moral author of last nights violence.

Iohannis has threatened to take the ordinance to the constitutional court, the last legal resort to stop the emergency decrees passing into law. He said on Thursday he was impressed by the protests, adding that Romanians had clearly what they want: the rule of law.

The European commission vice-president, Frans Timmermans, urged the government to urgently reconsider, saying that Romanias EU funding could be at risk.

In a separate statement, the US, Germany, Canada, Finland, the Netherlands and France said the government had undermined progress on rule of law and the fight against corruption over the past 10 years.

Clashes broke out in Bucharest after hundreds of thousands demonstrated across Romania in a second night of protests. Bottles and firecrackers were hurled at police in the capital, who responded with teargas. Twenty people were arrested and eight injured, authorities said.

In the largest demonstrations since the fall of communist dictator Nicolae Ceauescu in 1989, up to 300,000 people braved subzero temperatures to participate in protests across 50 towns and cities, including 150,000 in the capital. There were shouts of Thieves and calls for politicians to be locked up.

On Tuesday night the government passed an emergency ordinance that would, among other things, decriminalise cases of official misconduct in which the financial damage is less than 200,000 lei (38,000). The decree is due to take effect in a little over a week.

The government says the order and another draft bill on jail pardons are needed to ease prison overcrowding and bring the criminal code into line with recent constitutional court rulings.

But many worry the changes will reverse an anti-corruption push in Romania that saw the then prime minister Victor Ponta go on trial in 2015 over alleged tax evasion and money laundering charges he denies. Prosecutors are currently investigating 2,150 cases of alleged abuse of power.

On Wednesday opposition parties filed a no-confidence motion against the government, which is led by the PSD and has only been in office a few weeks. The PSD bounced back in elections on 11 December, barely a year since mass protests forced it from office.

Dragnea is currently on trial for alleged abuse of power and is already barred from office because of a two-year suspended jail sentence for electoral fraud handed down last year. He denies any wrongdoing in relation to the latest charges.

Business minister Florin Jianu announced his resignation on Thursday, saying he disagreed with the governments stance, while PSDs deputy chair, Mihai Chirica, called on the government to scrap the decree and send it to parliament for debate.

Jianu said on Facebook: I dont want to have to tell my child that I was a coward and I agreed to something that I dont believe in ... This is what my conscience tells me to do.

The British embassy in Bucharest said it would be concerned if the decree were to shrink the scope of corruption offences and was concerned by the very limited nature of consultations with all relevant stakeholders.

Justice minister Florin Iordache, who has come under fire for publishing the decrees, will temporarily hand his duties over to a subordinate in the ministry, spokeswoman Carmen Lita said. She said it was because he had a heavy workload preparing this years budget.

The protests on Tuesday and Wednesday follow a demonstration last Sunday that drew 40,000 people, including 20,000 in the capital, and another a week earlier involving more than 15,000. More protests are expected later on Thursday.

The size of the protests and the range of protesters is hugely significant and shows the depth and breadth of anger, said Dan Brett, an associate professor at the Open University. However, [those] who [might] benefit from the law have no interest in backing down. They are working on the assumption that as with most protests they will soon fizzle out and so can be ignored.

Link:
Romanian PM to 'press ahead' with corruption decrees as protests grow - The Guardian

Riot police stand guard as demonstrators gather in front of the government headquarters in Bucharest, on Feb. 1.

The largest protests since the collapse of communism failed to persuade Romanias government to reverselegislative changes that undermine a clampdown on corruption and have enraged the public.

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We took a decision and were going forward, Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu told a news conference with party leader Liviu Dragnea on Thursday. The party assured me we have its full support to continue our activity and proceed with the governing plan.

Source: Romanian Government

The Social Democrats face the largest backlash since the 1989uprising that ousted dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. Romanias third government in two years incurred the wrath of the public andPresident Klaus Iohannis by unexpectedly easing punishments for officials who abuse their positions and seeking to free others from prison. The protestersin the European Union and NATO member back the anti-graft drive thats ensnared top officials, including an ex-Social Democrat premier.

The turmoil sent the leu 1 percent weakeragainst the euro on Wednesday,the steepest decline in more than two years and one that erased all of its 2017 gains. It had rebounded by 0.4 percent as of 5:59 p.m. Thursday in Bucharest. S&P Global Ratings said risks to Romanias investment-grade status are currently balanced.

The government wants to pardon prisoners serving sentences shorter than five years, excluding rapists and repeat offenders, and decriminalize abuse-of-office offenses for sums of less than 200,000 lei ($48,000). While it says its trying to ease prisonovercrowding, its actions would free hundreds ofex-officials and halt probes into others.

They include an investigation into Dragnea, whos seeking a retrial after receiving a suspended sentence for electoral fraud. He denies wrongdoing and on Thursday blamed the protests on a misinformation campaign and encouragement from the president.

The Social Democrats strategy is to shield current and past party politicians from corruption probes, and make it practically impossible for serving politicians to be prosecuted for corruption, James Sawyer, a London-based researcher at Eurasia Group, said in an e-mailed note.

For an explainer on the protests in Romania, click here

Iohannis, whos challenging the governments actions in theConstitutional Court, said the only way to end the unrest is to repeal the steps. Hes seeking talks with Grindeanu next week. Prosecutors said theyll investigate the process through which the cabinet approved the measures.

The controversy in Romania comes amid concern that other regional governments are undermining the rule of law. The EU has reprimanded Poland and Hungary for state encroachment on thejudiciary and the media. The government in Warsaw backed away from plans to tighten abortion rules after mass protests.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker criticized Romanias actions, saying the fight against corruption needs to be advanced, not undone. Six embassies, including those of the U.S. and Germany, said they hope the government will reverse this unhelpful course.

Anti-graft prosecutors are working on more than 2,000abuse-of-office cases. In the past two years, theyve sent more than 1,000 people to trial, seeking to recover damages in excess of 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion). The country of 19 million people ranks fourth-worst for graft in the EU, according to Berlin-based Transparency International.

Ill come here every single day until they reverse all the measures and then leave, Ionut Balcescu, a 34-year-old small-business owner,said Wednesday evening in Bucharest. They take us for fools.

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Minister Quits as Biggest Post-Communist Protests Rock Romania ... - Bloomberg

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Marek Jdraszewski, the new Archbishop of Krakow, said belief in the interchangeability of male and female, and trans ideology, was a fundamental denial of reality and absurd from a scientific point of view.

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The archbishop, whose diocese was once held by Pope John Paul II, told Catholic News Agency that Pope Francis had emphasised to him in a meeting the danger of gender ideology because it breaks with the anthropological vision of what the man [is] according[to] the work of the Creator God.

God created the man as male and female, while gender ideology does everything possible to cancel differences between man and woman, the archbishop said.

This is absurd from a biological point of view, and it does not deal just with the human being: gender ideology has dramatic consequences in social life and in current culture.

We cannot be open to this ideology, that is profoundly against God the Creator and against everything Christ himself taught us, he said.

His comments come less than a month after another Catholic bishop, Cardinal Antonio Caizares, slammed gender theory as a denial of reason that undermines the traditional family, which in turn leads to social problems such as juvenile delinquency, drug abuse, prostitution and violence against women.

In a statement released on the feast of the Epiphany, the cardinal said: We must fight for human dignity and against every type of discrimination, but denying biological differences between men and women is not a solution.

He had previously described gender ideology as the most insidious and destructive ideology in all history.

An LGBT group filed hate speech charges against him last year, accusing him of using words that were full of hatred, homophobic and sexism, and incite hatred against those who do not fit into the archaic models defended by the Catholic hierarchy.

The charges were dismissed just days later.

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Gender Ideology Is More Dangerous than Communism, Says Bishop - Breitbart News